Trip Reports
02-20-2007, 09:43 PM
Amy Vanderboogert - February 2003
Time of Year: Winter
Travel Method: Personal Car
Resort: N/A
Accommodations: N/A
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Veteran
Comments: Free Disney World passes won from a radio station provide Amy with the perfect excuse for a quick Disney fix.
Amy Vanderboogert -- February 2003 -- Walt Disney World
Participants:
Me – Amy (28)
Charles (31) – A friend and fellow Disney fanatic
At the beginning of February 2003, I won a contest from a local radio station here in Tampa. The grand prize? Four 1-day passes to Disney World! I decided to share part of my winnings, so I invited my friend Charles to spend a day with me at the Disney MGM Studios. I only had until the middle of March to use the passes, so we agreed the sooner the better and agreed to go on Saturday the 22nd of February.
I was up at approximately 6:00am to start getting ready. MGM was open from 9:00am-7:00pm that day, so Charles told me to be over at his place around 8:00am so we could get there not too long after the rope drop. We ended up getting a slightly late start, but we made it to the park at 9:30 (made excellent time on I-4). Neither of us had bags, so we breezed through the security checkpoint and made our way into the park.
It had been almost three years since I’d been to MGM, so first thing I did was grab a map so I could remember where everything was. I’d made “priority seating” arrangements for lunch at the 50’s Prime Time Café, so we needed to find the exact location so we could plan our morning accordingly. Since Charles and I have both visited MGM many times, we decided to just play everything outside of lunch by ear. I’d brought my digital camera along and planned on taking lots of photos as well.
First stop… ‘The Great Movie Ride’. Every time I’d ridden this in the past, there was never a line. This time, the queue was actually outside the Chinese Theatre! The line moved swiftly thought… a 10 minute wait at the most. The ride was the same as always, but still amusing. We got the cowboy (well, cowgirl)… was hoping we’d get the gangster. Oh well. I wish they’d change some of the movie scenes to include ones from more recent years. Would give a better variety and keep things fresh. Maybe someday….
After our trip through the movies, we proceeded over to Mickey Avenue as I was on a mission… to find Tigger (my all-time favorite Disney character). Well, no Tigger, but we saw trailers for Pluto and Minnie, respectively. They weren’t out, but I made a mental note to return later as my mom adores Pluto and had to make a visit with him for her. I did see the area to go in and meet Mickey (my 2nd all-time fave) was open, so I went in. No line at all so I was face to face with The Mouse in his wonderful Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit right away. Got a photo snapped and we were on our way.
We finished traveling down Mickey Avenue past the ‘Studio Backlot Tour’ (didn’t go on that), ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ play area (I visited that on a previous trip so no need to this time around), down New York Street and over to ‘Muppet Vision 3D’. I had seen this show several times, but Charles hadn’t, so I knew this was a must. We both love the Muppets and their bizarre insanity. The show was funny and amusing as always and Charles liked it too. I actually like the pre-show better myself, but that’s just me.
After the Muppets, we made our way over to ‘Star Tours’. Only a 15 minute wait, so we got in the stand-by line. The film is a little dated, but still a lot of fun. I’m a big Star Wars buff, and always get excited when we go into the Death Star trench. Browsed through Tatooine Traders… I was hoping to find a young Obi-Wan postcard (I’m also a HUGE Ewan McGregor fan), but no such luck. Charles had fun playing with a life-sized toy lightsaber.
By this time it was around 11:40am. We had 25 minutes to kill before our 12:05 priority seating at the 50’s Prime Time Café. We decided to just take a small break and sat in the shade on the steps of the currently non-used ABC studio to look at the map again and make up a general game plan for the afternoon. Got tired of just sitting after about 10 minutes, so we walked over to Keystone Clothiers to look around. I found a cute Tigger cell phone holder with a belt clip, which I ended up buying. I have a Tigger faceplate on my cell phone and when I pulled it out to put in the new holder, the cast member who rang up my purchase asked me if I bought the faceplate there at Disney. I hadn’t… a friend bought it for me at a mall back in Tampa.
After our brief bout of shopping, it was finally time for lunch. The 50’s Prime Time Café was pretty crowded and I was glad I’d made priority seating arrangements a couple days beforehand. I’d read several stories about how your server is “Mom” and if you’re caught breaking her “rules”… major embarrassment. A friend told me once how they’d had to wear a dunce hat and sit with another family to eat. Unfortunately, our server was a regular guy, but lunch was still good. I had the ham sandwich (the BIGGEST ham sandwich I’ve ever seen) with potato chips (best chips I’ve ever had… not greasy at all). Charles had the Chicken Caesar Salad. Service was excellent (we had our food in front of us less than 10 minutes after we ordered). Excellent food. Would’ve loved dessert, but neither of us had the room! On our way out, I almost got trampled on by a couple of kids stampeding by. I stopped to let them by and the “Mom” that was working a nearby table said to me, “Out of my way, princess. Mom’s got work to do!” Charles about died laughing at that remark.
It was almost time for the 1:20 show of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It!’ so we headed back over to Mickey Avenue and got in line. Charles and I play NTN Trivia at a couple local bars in Tampa weekly with some other friends, so this was kind of a big deal for us as we’re both major trivia buffs. The lady they brought out from the previous game made it all the way up to the million point question, but ended up walking with 500,000 points away as she didn’t know the answer. Couldn’t blame her one bit. The guy sitting right behind me was the next person to make it into the hot seat and made it up to the 32,000 point question before time ran out. It was a really good show, I’d like to see/play it again.
Now it was time to hit the good stuff… ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ and ‘Tower of Terror!’ As we were heading over to Sunset Boulevard, I saw a flash of orange in the courtyard by the giant Sorcerer’s hat in front of ‘The Great Movie Ride’... TIGGER!!! I let out a yelp and took off running. Poor Charles had no idea what was going on at first, but then saw what I was all excited about. Now here I am, 28 years old, and acting like a little kid waiting in line to see Tigger. I think I was more excited than the kids in front of me! I was jumping up and down and basically acting like a total loony. Charles seemed quite amused (and a little scared). Finally it was my turn with The Bouncy One. I was just giddy as could be and started bouncing around myself, exclaiming “TIGGER!” and went in for a hug. Got a photo snapped, then decided to show Tig my cell phone bearing his likeness… he liked it, giving me a double thumbs-up, then kissed my hand. It was just too cute for words. Seeing Tigger really made my day (no trip to a Disney park is complete for me unless I have a Tigger encounter).
Finally made it to Sunset Boulevard (peeked in a few shops along the way). It was a 30 minute wait for ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’, but only a 13 minute wait for ‘Tower of Terror’. So we got FASTPASSES for the coaster and went on ToT. I’d only been on ToT once, and that was three years ago. The sensation of free-falling scares me a bit, but I was willing to brave it again. It ended up being just the rush I needed. At the end of the ride I exclaimed quite loudly, “AGAIN!” (like the baby dino on the old ABC “Dinosaurs” TV show always said). Everyone in our elevator cracked up laughing at my excitement. While browsing through the ToT gift shop, I saw the coolest thing… it looked like a little green light saber on a keychain with a little belt clip, but it had the ToT logo on it. I figured when you pressed the button on it, that it just lit up… but it actually flashed like a strobe light! I was just too cool for me to pass up, and it was less than $10, so I bought it (I’m going to have a LOT of fun with my new toy).
The weather was starting to threaten rain, which it did briefly. We took refuge in the gift shop by R&R Coaster until it stopped about 10-15 minutes later. By then it was time for our FASTPASS window, so we got in line. I’m a big guitar buff and I completely freaked when I saw a vintage 1958 Gibson Les Paul on display in the queue. One of my closest friends plays guitar and recently acquired a 1958 Less Paul reissue. I immediately thought of him, so I dug out my camera and snapped a couple photos for him (which came out pretty good considering the guitar was behind glass). I asked the cast member assigning rows for the coaster trains if Charles and I could ride in the front…no problem! I always have to sit in the front of any roller coaster I go on. It’s just the best way to experience the ride. R&R Coaster is one of my all-time fave coasters. I’d probably ride it all day if I could. As soon as we got off I wanted to go on it again. It was still a 30 minute wait in the stand-by line, so we grabbed more FASTPASSES.
Had an hour to kill before our window, so we went back to Mickey Avenue and visited the “Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream” exhibit. Very interesting! I enjoyed looking at the various park models and other displays. I wasn’t in the mood for the movie at the end, so I told Charles I was going to do more character hunting and we’d meet up in the Animation Courtyard after the movie let out. I started heading back to Mickey Avenue to see if Pluto was out by his trailer, when I saw that familiar flash of orange…Tigger was back! I was tempted to go see him again but decided not to. Instead I got in line to visit Meeko (the raccoon from Pocahontas). He is just the cutest thing! I gave my camera to a lady to snap a photo of us. I’m glad I did because Meeko decided to be mischievous and took my cell phone out of the holder and acted like he was going to make a call! It was just too adorable and downright funny. The lady with my camera managed to capture it for me (whoever you are…thank you!) along with a regular photo. From there I went by the trailers and sure enough… Pluto was out! I got in line and the cast member working there snapped a photo for me. Before I left I gave Pluto a kiss on the nose from my mom.
Met up with Charles in the Animation Courtyard, then headed back to ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ as our FASTPASS window was about to open. Another great ride! By then it was almost 6:00pm and we were both beat. We left just in time too as it started raining again just as we got back to the car. Before heading back to Tampa, we stopped in Downtown Disney at the Virgin Megastore. Browsed through there for about an hour, then braved the rain and started to head for home.
Final Overview:
If you’re a seasoned Disney expert, you can cover quite a bit of MGM in a day. Charles and I only visited the attractions we wanted and even managed to hit ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ twice using FASTPASS. I’m kind of wishing now that I’d done ‘Tower of Terror’ a couple more times as there was never much of a wait. But there will be another time for that.
All in all, we had a great time and I can NOT wait to do it all over again. I still have 2 passes left from my prize winnings. I think I’m going to finally pay a visit to Animal Kingdom in a couple weeks.
Amy Vanderboogert
Time of Year: Winter
Travel Method: Personal Car
Resort: N/A
Accommodations: N/A
Ages Represented in Group: Adult
WDW Experience Represented in Group: Veteran
Comments: Free Disney World passes won from a radio station provide Amy with the perfect excuse for a quick Disney fix.
Amy Vanderboogert -- February 2003 -- Walt Disney World
Participants:
Me – Amy (28)
Charles (31) – A friend and fellow Disney fanatic
At the beginning of February 2003, I won a contest from a local radio station here in Tampa. The grand prize? Four 1-day passes to Disney World! I decided to share part of my winnings, so I invited my friend Charles to spend a day with me at the Disney MGM Studios. I only had until the middle of March to use the passes, so we agreed the sooner the better and agreed to go on Saturday the 22nd of February.
I was up at approximately 6:00am to start getting ready. MGM was open from 9:00am-7:00pm that day, so Charles told me to be over at his place around 8:00am so we could get there not too long after the rope drop. We ended up getting a slightly late start, but we made it to the park at 9:30 (made excellent time on I-4). Neither of us had bags, so we breezed through the security checkpoint and made our way into the park.
It had been almost three years since I’d been to MGM, so first thing I did was grab a map so I could remember where everything was. I’d made “priority seating” arrangements for lunch at the 50’s Prime Time Café, so we needed to find the exact location so we could plan our morning accordingly. Since Charles and I have both visited MGM many times, we decided to just play everything outside of lunch by ear. I’d brought my digital camera along and planned on taking lots of photos as well.
First stop… ‘The Great Movie Ride’. Every time I’d ridden this in the past, there was never a line. This time, the queue was actually outside the Chinese Theatre! The line moved swiftly thought… a 10 minute wait at the most. The ride was the same as always, but still amusing. We got the cowboy (well, cowgirl)… was hoping we’d get the gangster. Oh well. I wish they’d change some of the movie scenes to include ones from more recent years. Would give a better variety and keep things fresh. Maybe someday….
After our trip through the movies, we proceeded over to Mickey Avenue as I was on a mission… to find Tigger (my all-time favorite Disney character). Well, no Tigger, but we saw trailers for Pluto and Minnie, respectively. They weren’t out, but I made a mental note to return later as my mom adores Pluto and had to make a visit with him for her. I did see the area to go in and meet Mickey (my 2nd all-time fave) was open, so I went in. No line at all so I was face to face with The Mouse in his wonderful Sorcerer’s Apprentice outfit right away. Got a photo snapped and we were on our way.
We finished traveling down Mickey Avenue past the ‘Studio Backlot Tour’ (didn’t go on that), ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Kids’ play area (I visited that on a previous trip so no need to this time around), down New York Street and over to ‘Muppet Vision 3D’. I had seen this show several times, but Charles hadn’t, so I knew this was a must. We both love the Muppets and their bizarre insanity. The show was funny and amusing as always and Charles liked it too. I actually like the pre-show better myself, but that’s just me.
After the Muppets, we made our way over to ‘Star Tours’. Only a 15 minute wait, so we got in the stand-by line. The film is a little dated, but still a lot of fun. I’m a big Star Wars buff, and always get excited when we go into the Death Star trench. Browsed through Tatooine Traders… I was hoping to find a young Obi-Wan postcard (I’m also a HUGE Ewan McGregor fan), but no such luck. Charles had fun playing with a life-sized toy lightsaber.
By this time it was around 11:40am. We had 25 minutes to kill before our 12:05 priority seating at the 50’s Prime Time Café. We decided to just take a small break and sat in the shade on the steps of the currently non-used ABC studio to look at the map again and make up a general game plan for the afternoon. Got tired of just sitting after about 10 minutes, so we walked over to Keystone Clothiers to look around. I found a cute Tigger cell phone holder with a belt clip, which I ended up buying. I have a Tigger faceplate on my cell phone and when I pulled it out to put in the new holder, the cast member who rang up my purchase asked me if I bought the faceplate there at Disney. I hadn’t… a friend bought it for me at a mall back in Tampa.
After our brief bout of shopping, it was finally time for lunch. The 50’s Prime Time Café was pretty crowded and I was glad I’d made priority seating arrangements a couple days beforehand. I’d read several stories about how your server is “Mom” and if you’re caught breaking her “rules”… major embarrassment. A friend told me once how they’d had to wear a dunce hat and sit with another family to eat. Unfortunately, our server was a regular guy, but lunch was still good. I had the ham sandwich (the BIGGEST ham sandwich I’ve ever seen) with potato chips (best chips I’ve ever had… not greasy at all). Charles had the Chicken Caesar Salad. Service was excellent (we had our food in front of us less than 10 minutes after we ordered). Excellent food. Would’ve loved dessert, but neither of us had the room! On our way out, I almost got trampled on by a couple of kids stampeding by. I stopped to let them by and the “Mom” that was working a nearby table said to me, “Out of my way, princess. Mom’s got work to do!” Charles about died laughing at that remark.
It was almost time for the 1:20 show of ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire – Play It!’ so we headed back over to Mickey Avenue and got in line. Charles and I play NTN Trivia at a couple local bars in Tampa weekly with some other friends, so this was kind of a big deal for us as we’re both major trivia buffs. The lady they brought out from the previous game made it all the way up to the million point question, but ended up walking with 500,000 points away as she didn’t know the answer. Couldn’t blame her one bit. The guy sitting right behind me was the next person to make it into the hot seat and made it up to the 32,000 point question before time ran out. It was a really good show, I’d like to see/play it again.
Now it was time to hit the good stuff… ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ and ‘Tower of Terror!’ As we were heading over to Sunset Boulevard, I saw a flash of orange in the courtyard by the giant Sorcerer’s hat in front of ‘The Great Movie Ride’... TIGGER!!! I let out a yelp and took off running. Poor Charles had no idea what was going on at first, but then saw what I was all excited about. Now here I am, 28 years old, and acting like a little kid waiting in line to see Tigger. I think I was more excited than the kids in front of me! I was jumping up and down and basically acting like a total loony. Charles seemed quite amused (and a little scared). Finally it was my turn with The Bouncy One. I was just giddy as could be and started bouncing around myself, exclaiming “TIGGER!” and went in for a hug. Got a photo snapped, then decided to show Tig my cell phone bearing his likeness… he liked it, giving me a double thumbs-up, then kissed my hand. It was just too cute for words. Seeing Tigger really made my day (no trip to a Disney park is complete for me unless I have a Tigger encounter).
Finally made it to Sunset Boulevard (peeked in a few shops along the way). It was a 30 minute wait for ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’, but only a 13 minute wait for ‘Tower of Terror’. So we got FASTPASSES for the coaster and went on ToT. I’d only been on ToT once, and that was three years ago. The sensation of free-falling scares me a bit, but I was willing to brave it again. It ended up being just the rush I needed. At the end of the ride I exclaimed quite loudly, “AGAIN!” (like the baby dino on the old ABC “Dinosaurs” TV show always said). Everyone in our elevator cracked up laughing at my excitement. While browsing through the ToT gift shop, I saw the coolest thing… it looked like a little green light saber on a keychain with a little belt clip, but it had the ToT logo on it. I figured when you pressed the button on it, that it just lit up… but it actually flashed like a strobe light! I was just too cool for me to pass up, and it was less than $10, so I bought it (I’m going to have a LOT of fun with my new toy).
The weather was starting to threaten rain, which it did briefly. We took refuge in the gift shop by R&R Coaster until it stopped about 10-15 minutes later. By then it was time for our FASTPASS window, so we got in line. I’m a big guitar buff and I completely freaked when I saw a vintage 1958 Gibson Les Paul on display in the queue. One of my closest friends plays guitar and recently acquired a 1958 Less Paul reissue. I immediately thought of him, so I dug out my camera and snapped a couple photos for him (which came out pretty good considering the guitar was behind glass). I asked the cast member assigning rows for the coaster trains if Charles and I could ride in the front…no problem! I always have to sit in the front of any roller coaster I go on. It’s just the best way to experience the ride. R&R Coaster is one of my all-time fave coasters. I’d probably ride it all day if I could. As soon as we got off I wanted to go on it again. It was still a 30 minute wait in the stand-by line, so we grabbed more FASTPASSES.
Had an hour to kill before our window, so we went back to Mickey Avenue and visited the “Walt Disney: One Man’s Dream” exhibit. Very interesting! I enjoyed looking at the various park models and other displays. I wasn’t in the mood for the movie at the end, so I told Charles I was going to do more character hunting and we’d meet up in the Animation Courtyard after the movie let out. I started heading back to Mickey Avenue to see if Pluto was out by his trailer, when I saw that familiar flash of orange…Tigger was back! I was tempted to go see him again but decided not to. Instead I got in line to visit Meeko (the raccoon from Pocahontas). He is just the cutest thing! I gave my camera to a lady to snap a photo of us. I’m glad I did because Meeko decided to be mischievous and took my cell phone out of the holder and acted like he was going to make a call! It was just too adorable and downright funny. The lady with my camera managed to capture it for me (whoever you are…thank you!) along with a regular photo. From there I went by the trailers and sure enough… Pluto was out! I got in line and the cast member working there snapped a photo for me. Before I left I gave Pluto a kiss on the nose from my mom.
Met up with Charles in the Animation Courtyard, then headed back to ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ as our FASTPASS window was about to open. Another great ride! By then it was almost 6:00pm and we were both beat. We left just in time too as it started raining again just as we got back to the car. Before heading back to Tampa, we stopped in Downtown Disney at the Virgin Megastore. Browsed through there for about an hour, then braved the rain and started to head for home.
Final Overview:
If you’re a seasoned Disney expert, you can cover quite a bit of MGM in a day. Charles and I only visited the attractions we wanted and even managed to hit ‘Rock ‘n Roller Coaster’ twice using FASTPASS. I’m kind of wishing now that I’d done ‘Tower of Terror’ a couple more times as there was never much of a wait. But there will be another time for that.
All in all, we had a great time and I can NOT wait to do it all over again. I still have 2 passes left from my prize winnings. I think I’m going to finally pay a visit to Animal Kingdom in a couple weeks.
Amy Vanderboogert